Airship.



. R. MACMECHEM. & W. V. KAMP.

AIRSHIP.

APPLICATION FILED, OCT- 5. i916r Panted Aug. 14., 19W.

N GN

NITED STATES AFrtil;

FFICE.

THOMAS RUTHERFORD MAGMECHEN AND WALTER V. KAMP, 0F NEW YGELK, N. Y.

AIRSHIP.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Application led October 5, 1916. Serial No. 123,809.

To all 'whom t may concern.'

Be it known that THOMAS RUTHERFORD MACMEGHEN and WALTER V. KAMP, citizens of the United States, and residents of the borough and county of Bronx, city and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Airships, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to airships and consists in the production of an airship whose external contours possess speed lines of novel and improved character, to render the airship capable of meeting air resistance in flight under the most favorable conditions, whereby the airship may achieve a maximum rate,of travel at the expenditure of a minimum amount of propulsive energy; and whereby it may be controlled as to direction with the greatest facility.

The embodiment of our improved speed v lines for airships comprises a hull construction whose intermediate longitudinal portion represents a parallelepiped, with a head portion of parabolic shape, the vertex being dropped below the main longitudinal axis of said hull; and the after part of the hull being drawn out symmetrically through a gradual rearward attenuation having stream-line conformation.

The true cylindrical contour of the intermediate body portion extends relatively nearer tothe bow of the hull than to the stern thereof, thereby providing a shoulder thrust against the air Y ressure met with in the travel of the airs ip, for abrupt displacement of the head resisting pressure;

and leaving a head cleavage in the compressed air for the passage of the main cylindrical body portion; the rearwardly tapering or diminishing portion of the hull, by reason of its relatively considerable longitudinal extent, preventing the creation of `suction influences which would otherwise exercise a speed retarding efect.

The parabolic lines of the head portion are more acute over the upper part of its surface than over the under part of its surface, resultin in the provision of a` forward termina? of conoid form, whose longitudinal axis is tangential to the main longitudinal axis of the hull. This allows the car, which lies snugly up'against the lower surface of the hull, to present its bottom and keel as a continuation of the lines which extend rearwardly from the bow in symmetry with the more acute parabolic lines repres enting the upper portion of the bow; those lines continuing rearwardly in parallelism with the lines of the cylindrical body portion of the hull, but having a longitudinal axis emanating from the apex of the conoid terminal.

By this arrangement of the contour or speed lines encompassing the hull and car, the caris included in the overall symmetrical.configuration\ of the airship, whose head resistance is thus rendered proportionate and evenly balanced, thereby facilitating directional control of the airship.

In the drawing Figure l represents a side elevation of an airship with a car, having improved speed lines, and

Fig. 2 is a section on the lines 13 and 7 respectively of Fig. 1.

Only an external view of the airship is shown in Fig. 1 because our improvements are directed in this application solely to the speed lines of 'the airship, and the particular conformation of the envelop encompassing the hull will therefore be described herein to establish the novel features of our invention, in conjunction with the conformation of the car bottom and keel. Thus, when We speak of the hull, we are referring in this application to the outer surface of the envelop, without reference to any particular construction of the internal supporting frame, and when we speak of the airship, weinclude in that term the hull with the car attached thereto.

The hull is designated by the numeral and the car by the numeral 2, the car, in the practice of our invention, being of elongate form and connected close up against the hull, with which it extends longitudinally for an intermediate portion of the length of said hull. The main axis of the hull, indicated by the numeral 3, extends from the extreme rear end of the hull to the point 4 near the bow, dropping therefrom, as a subsidiary axis, to the bow terminal at 5, to comprise the bow axis 6, which thus lies tangentially with relation to the main axis.

In the example indicated, the bow or head resembles, in the contour of its upper portion, a parabola, starting from a point 4, and terminating in the apex 5, that comprises the forward terminal of the conoidal head portion, which springs from a transverse plane 7 in the vertical axis of the Patented Aug. 14, 1917.

point 4a; the lower bow portion representing a less acute parabola, which starts from the base of said vertical plane 7, and extends to the terminal apex 5 of the head portion, tol

complete the conoidal bow conformation. Thus the head portion, in the inter-relation of its transverse sections (see Fig. 2) may be termed an eccentric cone.

The longitudinal extent of the aforesaid head portion lying between the vertical plane 7 and the terminal apex 5 of the head portion, represented by the subsidiary axis 6, may be approximately equal to the diameter of the intermediate, or main body portion of the hull.

The longitudinal extent of the said main body portion of the hull, which is cylindrical, maywbe'approximately live ninths of the longitudinal extent of the airship hull, reckoned Afrom the transverse plane 7 to the extreme rearward end of the hull at 9. Thus the cylindrical body portion, which is a parallelepiped, extends, for example, from the forward transverse plane 7 to a rearward transverse plane 10; and, from said plane 10, to the stern terminal 9, the rearward hull portion 'equals in length approximately four ninths of the total hull length lying between the plane 7 and terminal 9.

The said rearward hull portion, which lies between the transverse plane 10 and terminal 9, is transversely concentric and tapers gradually toward the stern, in stream-line conformation. l

The base lines of the car 2, at the forward end of said car, have a curvature, which, if continued as a-parabola to the bow apex 5 (See dotted line 11), would be symmetrical with the lines ofthe upper bow portion. The car bottom, between its forward and rear ends, is in parallelism with the cylindrical body portion of the hull, the stern of said car being inclined upwardly and rear- ;lvalidly to the point of its junction with the Thus, the over-all dimensions of the hull and car have a lon 'tudinal axis 12, lying in a horizontal plane elow the hull axis 3, and intersecting the vertex of the subsidiary or dropped axis 6. In this manner the head resistance presented by the bow of the airship is rendered symmetrical with respect to the relation of the curvatures of the upper and lower parabolic lines projected by the airship in opposition to the air pressure met in the path of travel.

It should be observed that the conoidal head of the hull, by reason of the flatter curvature at its under surface, where the parabolic lines are less racute than over its upper surface, serves a further function, in that said flatter conformation enables the airship to be pointed up more readily when ascending with dynamic lift, said atter under surface of the head acting in the manner of an elevator plane for ascensional purposes.

We claim:

1. An airship whose head contour represents the curvatures of opposed parabolas, the

curvatures of the upper portion of said head y contour being more acute than those of the lower portion thereof.

2. An airship comprising a concentric hull with a carv lying close against its under surface, and a head portion of eccentric conelike formation, the longitudinal axis of the airship lying parallel with and below the longitudinal axis of the hull.

3. In an airship, a concentric hull whose longitudinal extent includes a cylindrical body portion, a parabolic head portion, and a rearward, gradually diminishing concentric after portion of stream-line conformation, the relative longitudinal extents of said portions being characterized by the length of the head portion equaling approximately the diameter of the body portion, and the length of the body portion equaling approximately five ninths of the combined lengths of the body and the after portions.

4. An airship whose head contour represents the curvatures of opposed paraboles, the curvatures of the under portion of said head contour being flatter than those of the upper portion thereof, thereby serving as an elevator when pointing the airship upwardly.

Signed at the borough of Manhattan in the city, county and State of New York this 3rd day of October A. D. 1916.

TROS. RUTHERFORD MAGMEGHEN. WALTER V. KAMP.

Witnesses:

F. W. BAKKER, L. Mosxowrrz. 

